[Matias]

Elias, Scrith and Gordon, thank you for you answers. I already knew about ASIO4All, always thought it was made for onboard soundchips, didn't occur to me it'd work with Benchmark's driver. It worked indeed!

Well, after a couple of initial tests (1 hour or so) with several songs, I noticed ASIO4All sounded somehow differente from DirectSound, not sure if it was better or worse. But I am sure that BOTH sound worse than Juli@'s SPDIF. The latter just has more dynamics (transients), clearer mids and is overall more realistic.

I give up now. Even using an ASIO path (not native, btw) and bypassing kmixer, Benchmark's USB still sounds a little worse than a true native ASIO+SPDIF output. Is it perhaps the USB circuitry? Or the cheap USB cable that came with it?

PS: Did anyone else compare the DAC1's attenuator (variable output) agains a high-end DACT CT2 attenuator? I did. It was a massacre. The DACT is a LOT cleaner and detailed, wider soundstage. Of course it costs half the DAC1, but still.

 

[Wavelength]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matias /img/forum/go_quote.gif Elias, Scrith and Gordon, thank you for you answers. I already knew about ASIO4All, always thought it was made for onboard soundchips, didn't occur to me it'd work with Benchmark's driver. It worked indeed! Well, after a couple of initial tests (1 hour or so) with several songs, I noticed ASIO4All sounded somehow differente from DirectSound, not sure if it was better or worse. But I am sure that BOTH sound worse than Juli@'s SPDIF. The latter just has more dynamics (transients), clearer mids and is overall more realistic. I give up now. Even using an ASIO path (not native, btw) and bypassing kmixer, Benchmark's USB still sounds a little worse than a true native ASIO+SPDIF output. Is it perhaps the USB circuitry? Or the cheap USB cable that came with it? PS: Did anyone else compare the DAC1's attenuator (variable output) agains a high-end DACT CT2 attenuator? I did. It was a massacre. The DACT is a LOT cleaner and detailed, wider soundstage. Of course it costs half the DAC1, but still.

Matias,

There are allot of ways to set this all up. I am not sure why you have the output set to 88.2 instead of 44.1 as this will envoke upsampling unless you are truely using 24/88.2 files. I am not a fan of upsamplers on the PC or the MAC.

There is as others suggested Kernel Streaming which may fare better in your situation for USB.

It's up too you as you are the only one you have to satisfy!

Thanks
Gordon

 

[Matias]

Gordon,

Notive that even though there's an option to resample, it is disabled. The DAC already does it's internal resampling to 110kHz.

Cheers,
Matias

 

[tarobyte]

Elias,
Thanks to your contributions to this thread and other positive feeback, I'm determined to acquire the DAC1 USB, but unfortunately in Japan the only place I can find that carries the unit, fujiya avic, is selling it for about a $300 premium (about 160,000JPY) and they don't even have the product in stock. The Benchmark site doesn't seem to allow direct purchase from JP customers either. There should be alot of latent demand for this product in JP but there is much to be desired around the distribution model.

This is obviously not an engineering question, but I figure that your presence in this forum is with the end goal of increasing sales I thought it might be okay to inquire.

 

[Matias]

tarobyte, I'm from Brazil and I ordered mine through B&H Photo. No problems!

 

[poo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tarobyte /img/forum/go_quote.gif Elias, Thanks to your contributions to this thread and other positive feeback, I'm determined to acquire the DAC1 USB, but unfortunately in Japan the only place I can find that carries the unit, fujiya avic, is selling it for about a $300 premium (about 160,000JPY) and they don't even have the product in stock

Same deal in Australia unfortunatley - premiumn price - no stock - no expertise or help/advice.

I also purchased from B&H - very helpful, personalised service and support (which was the last thing I expected from them TBH). I hope Benchmark are wise enough to understand why they should 'turn a blind eye' to international trade in these circumstances. If resellers in those countries were providing appropriate support (or at least supporting the brand with stock), it would be a different matter.

Nice product though

 

[riverlethe]

Elias,
Recently, when adjusting the volume on the DAC1 the first one or two times, I've started hearing some kind of brief static noise in the left channel. This happens in both speaker and headphone outputs. Is this normal?

 

[jdh500]

I paid $1895 AUD for the DAC 1 pre from a hifi store in Sydney last week even theough the RRP is $2295 AUD in Australia. I also prevously purchased my original DAC 1 from the same store, pretty happy with overall service and price even though it is substantially higher in Australia compared to the USA etc.

JDH.


Quote:

Originally Posted by poo /img/forum/go_quote.gif Same deal in Australia unfortunatley - premiumn price - no stock - no expertise or help/advice. I also purchased from B&H - very helpful, personalised service and support (which was the last thing I expected from them TBH). I hope Benchmark are wise enough to understand why they should 'turn a blind eye' to international trade in these circumstances. If resellers in those countries were providing appropriate support (or at least supporting the brand with stock), it would be a different matter. Nice product though

 

[poo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdh500 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I paid $1895 AUD for the DAC 1 pre from a hifi store in Sydney last week even theough the RRP is $2295 AUD in Australia. I also prevously purchased my original DAC 1 from the same store, pretty happy with overall service and price even though it is substantially higher in Australia compared to the USA etc. JDH.

I called a few 'specialist' stores in Sydney (and two interstate) before making my decision to import. None were able to offer any sercive, advice, expertise or movement on price.

Might be worth mentioning the store you are referring to so that others can enjoy the same benefits you speak of.

 

[jdh500]

For those interested, I purchased my DAC1 and DAC1pre from Instyle Home Theatre & HiFi in Sydney, Aust. Speak to Mario the store owner for details, this HiFi dealer was actually very helpful and went out their way to set up a new account with the Australian distributor to order them in for me. They said they were likely to order another one in as a shop demo, so more than likely you should be able to end up having a demo of it too.

JDH.


Quote:

Originally Posted by poo /img/forum/go_quote.gif I called a few 'specialist' stores in Sydney (and two interstate) before making my decision to import. None were able to offer any sercive, advice, expertise or movement on price. Might be worth mentioning the store you are referring to so that others can enjoy the same benefits you speak of.

 

[EliasGwinn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tarobyte /img/forum/go_quote.gif Elias, Thanks to your contributions to this thread and other positive feeback, I'm determined to acquire the DAC1 USB, but unfortunately in Japan the only place I can find that carries the unit, fujiya avic, is selling it for about a $300 premium (about 160,000JPY) and they don't even have the product in stock. The Benchmark site doesn't seem to allow direct purchase from JP customers either. There should be alot of latent demand for this product in JP but there is much to be desired around the distribution model. This is obviously not an engineering question, but I figure that your presence in this forum is with the end goal of increasing sales I thought it might be okay to inquire.

tarobyte and other folks in Europe and Asia,

Sorry...

but the extra cost associated with foriegn distribution is unavoidable due to import/export tarrifs, customs fees, and other taxes and fees.

Also, I apologize for limited stock. We've been busier then we ever have been...which is a good problem to have, I guess

....but we don't want to make it difficult for you to find them. We are aware of these issues, and we appreciate when you let us know. Hopefully, we can get stock back up to normal levels soon.

Thanks,
Elias

 

[luciyuspax]

EliasGwinn, If it is okay, I would like to ask you a question about Benchmark DAC1. Why was Benchmark DAC1 engineered as an upsampling DAC? Its DAC chip allows for non-upsampling processing as well(I mean only its DAC chip,not Benchmark DAC1 as whole),right?

Although we can argue that external sound cards like E-MU 0404usb or m-audio 2496 usb are not bit perfect with their special usb drivers,they seem to be non upsampling DACs.

Nowadays I notice that dedicated DACs mostly are upsampling and external lower price DACs like e-mu 0404 usb or m-audio external models (described as sound cards)& internal sound cards are non upsampling. Does upsampling process provide better sound quality over non upsampling?

I would really appreciate it if you could provide me links to technical documents about it. I am considering buying Benchmark DAC1 sometime in 2009 and I really wanna understand this whole upsampling issue. Don't be afraid to go too much technical as I am a physics student specializing in electronics.

Have a nice day all head-fi members!

 

[infinitesymphony]

The external cards you listed are capable of bit-perfect output. Regarding upsampling, it's really a case-by-case basis in terms of better/worse because the quality of the implementation varies.

The Benchmark DAC1 upsamples to a very specific rate (~110 kHz) to maximize the performance of the Analog Devices AD1853 DAC chip inside. See this earlier post for more info.

 

[EliasGwinn]

luciyuspax,

The process of upsampling does not inherently improve sound quality during D/A conversion. However, Benchmark converters re-sample for a very specific reason: jitter immunity.

Benchmark converters use a proprietary clocking system (we refer to it as UltraLock). It works like this...

The incoming digital signal is immediately re-sampled by an ASRC (asyncronous sample rate converter). The ASRC, as the name implies, is not syncronized to the clock of the incoming digital signal.

Therefore, its performance is independant of the quality of that clock. In other words, it doesn't matter if the signal came from a cheap transport with cheap cables, or from a $10,000 signal chain. The large amount of jitter caused by the cheap transport and cheap cable will be moot with respect to the ASRC process. The output of the ASRC is then clocked to an on-board clock with extremely low jitter and strategic sheilding and board traces.

The output of the ASRC can be configured to any sample rate that we choose, including the original sample rate. However, we dictated the re-sample rate as 110 kHz because it is the highest sample-rate at which the digital interpolation filter of the D/A chip will operate optimally.

The ill-effects of the digital interpolation filter at higher-then-110 kHz include pass-band ripple (non-linearities in frequency response) and inferior attenuation of stop-band frequencies (which results in aliasing). Therefore, the D/A performance is optimized by maintaing 110 kHz.

Many converter designers have since employed similar topologies, but use lower re-sampling frequencies, such as 96 kHz. By resampling to 110 kHz, the low-pass filter of the ASRC and D/A are moved as far up as possible as to not infringe on the analog bandwidth of the audio.

I hope I explained this clearly...

Thanks,
Elias

 

[luciyuspax]

Yeah,your explanation was very clear. Thank you very much for the answer. Infinitesymphony, It is nice to know that my e-mu 0404 usb has bitperfect output.

I remember reading another post of EliasGwinn,in which he was explaining why they chose to go with default windows usb drivers for Benchmark DAC1. He had said that they had noticed that many of external usb sound cards using special usb drivers were not actually bit-perfect( he hadn't specified any brand of usb audio about this) and in most cases that windows' own usb audio drivers were bit perfect.